Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

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She gives me a ham sandwich with juicy slices of tomato and tea in a cup with little pink angels flying around shooting arrows at other lit- tle flying angels who are blue and I wonder why they can't make teacups and chamber pots without all kinds of angels and maidens cavorting in the glen. Mam says that's the way the rich are, they love the bit of decoration and wouldn't we if we had the money. She'd give her two eyes to have a house like this with flowers and birds abroad in the garden and the wireless playing that lovely Warsaw Concerto or the Dream of Olwyn and no end of cups and saucers with angels shooting arrows.

Chamber pot? You have to empty his chamber pot?

Of course I do.

There's a silence here because I think we're remembering the cause of all our troubles, Laman Griffin's chamber pot. But that was a long time ago and now it's Mr. Sliney's chamber pot, which is no harm because she's paid for this and he's harmless. When she comes back she tells me Mr. Sliney would like to see me, so come in while he's awake.

He's lying in a bed in the front parlor, the window blocked with a black sheet, no sign of light. He tells my mother, Lift me up a bit, mis- sus, and pull back that bloody thing off the window so I can see the boy.

He has long white hair down to his shoulders. Mam whispers he won't let anyone cut it. He says, I have me own teeth, son.Would you credit that? Do you have your own teeth, son?

I do, Mr. Sliney.

Ah. I was in India you know. Me and Timoney up the road. Bunch of Limerick men in India. Do you know Timoney, son?

I did, Mr. Sliney.

He's dead, you know. Poor bugger went blind. I have me sight. I have me teeth. Keep your teeth, son.

I will, Mr. Sliney.

I'm getting tired, son, but there's one thing I want to tell you. Are you listening to me?

I am, Mr. Sliney.

Is he listening to me, missus?

Oh, he is, Mr. Sliney.

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Every day after my deliveries I take The Irish Times home and read it to see where the danger is. Mam says it's a good thing Dad isn't here. He'd say, Is this what the men of Ireland fought and died for that my own son is sitting there at the kitchen table reading the freemason paper?

There are letters to the editor from people all over Ireland claiming they heard the first cuckoo of the year and you can read between the lines that people are calling each other liars. There are reports about Protestant weddings and pictures and the women always look lovelier than the ones we know in the lanes.You can see Protestant women have perfect teeth although Halvey's Rose had lovely teeth.

I keep reading The Irish Times and wondering if it's an occasion of sin though I don't care. As long as Theresa Carmody is in heaven not coughing I don't go to confession anymore. I read The Irish Times and The Times of London because that tells me what the King is up to every day and what Elizabeth and Margaret are doing.

I read English women's magazines for all the food articles and the answers to women's questions. Peter and Eamon put on English accents and pretend they're reading from English women's magazines.

Peter says, Dear Miss Hope, I'm going out with a fellow from Ire- land named McCaffrey and he has his hands all over me and his thing pushing against my belly button and I'm demented not knowing what to do. I remain, yours anxiously, Miss Lulu Smith,Yorkshire.

Eamon says, Dear Lulu, If this McCaffrey is that tall that he's push- ing his yoke against your belly button I suggest you find a smaller man who will slip it between your thighs. Surely you can find a decent short man in Yorkshire.

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Dear Agnes,You are to be congratulated.You are now a woman and you can get your hair permed because you are having your monthlies. Do not fear your monthlies for all Englishwomen have them.They are a gift of God to purify us so that we can have stronger children for the empire, soldiers to keep the Irish in their place. In some parts of the world a woman with a monthly is unclean but we British cherish our women with the monthlies, oh we do indeed.

In the springtime there's a new messenger boy and I'm back in the office. Peter and Eamon drift off to England. Peter is fed up with Lim- erick, no girls, and you're driven to yourself, wank wank wank, that's all we ever do in Limerick.There are new boys. I'm senior boy and the job is easier because I'm fast and when Mr. McCaffrey is out in the van and my work is done I read the English, Irish, American magazines and papers. Day and night I dream of America.

Malachy goes to England to work in a rich Catholic boys' boarding school and he walks around cheerful and smiling as if he's the equal of any boy in the school and everyone knows when you work in an Eng- lish boarding school you're supposed to hang your head and shuffle like a proper Irish servant.They fire him for his ways and Malachy tells them they can kiss his royal Irish arse and they say that's the kind of foul lan- guage and behavior you'd expect. He gets a job in the gas works in Coventry shoveling coal into the furnaces like Uncle Pa Keating, shov- eling coal and waiting for the day he can go to America after me.

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XVIII I'm seventeen,eighteen,going on nineteen,working away at Easons, writing threatening letters for Mrs. Finucane, who says she's not long for this world and the more Masses said for her soul the better she'll feel.She puts money in envelopes and sends me to churches around the city to knock on priests' doors, hand in the envelopes with the request for Masses. She wants prayers from all the priests but the Jesuits. She says,They're useless, all head and no heart.That's what they should have over their door in Latin and I won't give them a penny because every penny you give a Jesuit goes to a fancy book or a bottle of wine.

I'll be nineteen in a month.All I need is a few pounds to make up the fare and a few pounds in my pocket when I land in America.

The Friday night before my nineteenth birthday Mrs. Finucane sends me for the sherry.When I return she is dead in the chair, her eyes wide open, and her purse on the floor wide open. I can't look at her but I help myself to a roll of money. Seventeen pounds. I take the key

354 to the trunk upstairs. I take forty of the hundred pounds in the trunk and the ledger. I'll add this to what I have in the post office and I have enough to go to America. On my way out I take the sherry bottle to save it from being wasted.

I sit by the River Shannon near the dry docks sipping Mrs. Finu- cane's sherry.Aunt Aggie's name is in the ledger. She owes nine pounds. It might have been the money she spent on my clothes a long time ago but now she'll never have to pay it because I heave the ledger into the river. I'm sorry I'll never be able to tell Aunt Aggie I saved her nine pounds. I'm sorry I wrote threatening letters to the poor people in the lanes of Limerick, my own people, but the ledger is gone, no one will ever know what they owe and they won't have to pay their balances. I wish I could tell them, I'm your Robin Hood.

Another sip of the sherry. I'll spare a pound or two for a Mass for Mrs. Finucane's soul. Her ledger is well on its way down the Shannon and out to the Atlantic and I know I'll follow it someday soon. The man at O'Riordan's Travel Agency says he can't get me to Amer- ica by air unless I travel to London first, which would cost a fortune. He can put me on a ship called the Irish Oak, which will be leaving Cork in a few weeks. He says, Nine days at sea, September October, best time of the year, your own cabin, thirteen passengers, best of food, bit of a holiday for yourself and that will cost fifty-five pounds, do you have it?

I do. I tell Mam I'm going in a few weeks and she cries. Michael says,Will we all go some day?

We will.

Alphie says,Will you send me a cowboy hat and a thing you throw that comes back to you?

Michael tells him that's a boomerang and you'd have to go all the way to Australia to get the likes of that, you can't get it in America.

Alphie says you can get it in America yes you can and they argue about America and Australia and boomerangs till Mam says,For the love o' Jesus, yeer brother is leaving us and the two of ye are there squabbling over boomerangs.Will ye give over?

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I want to get pictures of Limerick stuck in my head in case I never come back. I sit in St. Joseph's Church and the Redemptorist church and tell myself take a good look because I might never see this again. I walk down Henry Street to say good-bye to St. Francis though I'm sure I'll be able to talk to him in America.

Now there are days I don't want to go to America. I'd like to go to O'Riordan's Travel Agency and get back my fifty-five pounds. I could wait till I'm twenty-one and Malachy can go with me so that I'll know at least one person in New York. I have strange feelings and sometimes when I'm sitting by the fire with Mam and my brothers I feel tears coming and I'm ashamed of myself for being weak.At first Mam laughs and tells me,Your bladder must be near your eye, but then Michael says, We'll all go to America, Dad will be there, Malachy will be there and we'll all be together, and she gets the tears herself and we sit there, the four of us, like weeping eejits.

Mam says this is the first time we ever had a party and isn't it a sad thing altogether that you have it when your children are slipping away one by one, Malachy to England, Frank to America. She saves a few shillings from her wages taking care of Mr. Sliney to buy bread, ham, brawn, cheese, lemonade and a few bottles of stout. Uncle Pa Keating brings stout, whiskey and a little sherry for Aunt Aggie's delicate stom-

356 ach and she brings a cake loaded with currants and raisins she baked herself.The Abbot brings six bottles of stout and says,That's all right, Frankie, ye can all drink it as long as I have a bottle or two for meself to help me sing me song.

He sings "The Road to Rasheen." He holds his stout, closes his eyes, and song comes out in a high whine.The words make no sense and every- one wonders why tears are seeping from his shut eyes.Alphie whispers to me,Why is he crying over a song that makes no sense?

I don't know.

The Abbot ends his song, opens his eyes, wipes his cheeks and tells us that was a sad song about an Irish boy that went to America and got shot by gangsters and died before a priest could reach his side and he tells me don't be gettin' shot if you're not near a priest.

Uncle Pa says that's the saddest song he ever heard and is there any chance we could have something lively. He calls on Mam and she says, Ah, no, Pa, sure I don't have the wind.

Come on, Angela, come on. One voice now, one voice and one voice only.

All right. I'll try.

We all join in the chorus of her sad song,

A mother's love is a blessing

No matter where you roam.

Keep her while you have her,

You'll miss her when she's gone.

Uncle Pa says one song is worse than the one before and are we turning this night into a wake altogether, is there any chance someone would sing a song to liven up the proceedings or will he be driven to drink with the sadness.

Oh, God, says Aunt Aggie, I forgot.The moon is having an eclipse abroad this minute.

We stand out in the lane watching the moon disappear behind a round black shadow.Uncle Pa says,That's a very good sign for you going to America, Frankie.

No,says Aunt Aggie,'tis a bad sign.I read in the paper that the moon is practicing for the end of the world.

Oh, end of the world my arse, says Uncle Pa. 'Tis the beginning for

357 Frankie McCourt. He'll come back in a few years with a new suit and fat on his bones like any Yank and a lovely girl with white teeth hangin' from his arm.

Mam says,Ah, no, Pa, ah, no, and they take her inside and comfort her with a drop of sherry from Spain. It's late in the day when the Irish Oak sails from Cork, past Kinsale and Cape Clear, and dark when lights twinkle on Mizen Head, the last of Ireland I'll see for God knows how long.

Surely I should have stayed, taken the post office examination, climbed in the world. I could have brought in enough money for Michael and Alphie to go to school with proper shoes and bellies well filled.We could have moved from the lane to a street or even an avenue where houses have gardens. I should have taken that examination and Mam would never again have to empty the chamber pots of Mr. Sliney or anyone else.

It's too late now. I'm on the ship and there goes Ireland into the night and it's foolish to be standing on this deck looking back and thinking of my family and Limerick and Malachy and my father in England and even more foolish that songs are going through my head Roddy McCorley goes to die and Mam gasping Oh the days of the Kerry dancing with poor Mr. Clohessy hacking away in the bed and now I want Ireland back at least I had Mam and my brothers and Aunt Aggie bad as she was and Uncle Pa, standing me my first pint, and my bladder is near my eye and here's a priest standing by me on the deck and you can see he's curious.

He's a Limerickman but he has an American accent from his years in Los Angeles. He knows how it is to leave Ireland, did it himself and never got over it.You live in Los Angeles with sun and palm trees day in day out and you ask God if there's any chance He could give you one soft rainy Limerick day.

The priest sits beside me at the table of the First Officer, who tells us ship's orders have been changed and instead of sailing to New York we're bound for Montreal.

Three days out and orders are changed again.We are going to New York after all.

Three American passengers complain,Goddam Irish.Can't they get it straight?

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The Americans say,Albany? Goddam Albany? Why the hell did we have to sail on a goddam Irish tub? Goddam.

The priest tells me pay no attention.All Americans are not like that.

I'm on deck the dawn we sail into New York.I'm sure I'm in a film, that it will end and lights will come up in the Lyric Cinema.The priest wants to point out things but he doesn't have to. I can pick out the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Brooklyn Bridge. There are thousands of cars speeding along the roads and the sun turns everything to gold. Rich Americans in top hats white ties and tails must be going home to bed with the gor- geous women with white teeth.The rest are going to work in warm comfortable offices and no one has a care in the world.

The Americans are arguing with the captain and a man who climbed aboard from a tugboat.Why can't we get off here? Why do we have to sail all the goddam way to goddam Albany?

The man says, Because you're passengers on the vessel and the cap- tain is the captain and we have no procedures for taking you ashore.

Oh, yeah.Well, this is a free country and we're American citizens.

Is that a fact? Well, you're on an Irish ship with an Irish captain and you'll do what he goddam tells you or swim ashore.

He climbs down the ladder, tugboat chugs away, and we sail up the Hudson past Manhattan, under the George Washington Bridge, past hundreds of Liberty ships that did their bit in the war, moored now and ready to rot.

The captain announces the tide will force us to drop anchor over- night opposite a place called, the priest spells it for me, Poughkeepsie. The priest says that's an Indian name and the Americans say goddam Poughkeepsie.

After dark a small boat put-puts to the ship and an Irish voice calls up, Hello, there. Bejasus, I saw the Irish flag, so I did. Couldn't believe me two eyes. Hello, there.

He invites the First Officer to go ashore for a drink and bring a friend and,You, too, Father. Bring a friend.

The priest invites me and we climb down a ladder to the small boat with the First Officer and the Wireless Officer.The man in the boat says his name is Tim Boyle from Mayo God help us and we docked there at the right time because there's a bit of a party and we're all invited. He

359 takes us to a house with a lawn, a fountain and three pink birds stand- ing on one leg.There are five women in a room called a living room. The women have stiff hair, spotless frocks. They have glasses in their hands and they're friendly and smile with perfect teeth.One says,Come right in. Just in time for the pawty.

Pawty.That's the way they talk and I suppose I'll be talking like that in a few years.

Tim Boyle tells us the girls are having a bit of a time while their husbands are away overnight hunting deer, and one woman, Betty, says, Yeah. Buddies from the war.That war is over nearly five years and they can't get over it so they shoot animals every weekend and drink Rhein- gold till they can't see. Goddam war, excuse the language, Fawder.

The priest whispers to me, These are bad women. We won't stay here long.

The bad women say, Whatcha like to drink? We got everything. What's your name, honey?

Frank McCourt.

Nice name.So you take a little drink.All the Irish take a little drink. You like a beer?

Yes, please.

Gee,so polite.I like the Irish.My grandmother was half Irish so that makes me half, quarter? I dunno. My name is Frieda. So here's your beer, honey.

The priest sits at the end of a sofa which they call a couch and two women talk to him. Betty asks the First Officer if he'd like to see the house and he says, Oh, I would, because we don't have houses like this in Ireland.Another woman tells the Wireless Officer he should see what they have growing in the garden, you wouldn't believe the flowers. Frieda asks me if I'm okay and I tell her yes but would she mind telling me where the lavatory is.

The what?

Lavatory.

Oh, you mean the bathroom. Right this way, honey, down the hall.

Thanks.

She pushes in the door, turns on the light, kisses my cheek and whispers she'll be right outside if I need anything.

I stand at the toilet bowl firing away and wonder what I'd need at a time like this and if this is a common thing in America, women wait- ing outside while you take a splash.

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Frieda tells the priest I had a bit of a dizziness after going to the bathroom, that's what happens when you travel and you're drinking a strange beer like Rheingold, which she believes they don't have in Ire- land. I can see the priest doesn't believe her and I can't stop the way the heat is coming and going in my face. He already wrote down my mother's name and address and now I'm afraid he'll write and say your fine son spent his first night in America in a bedroom in Poughkeepsie romping with a woman whose husband was away shooting deer for a bit of relaxation after doing his bit for America in the war and isn't this a fine way to treat the men who fought for their country.

The First Officer and the Wireless Officer return from their tours of the house and the garden and they don't look at the priest. The women tell us we must be starving and they go into the kitchen.We sit in the living room saying nothing to each other and listening to the women whispering and laughing in the kitchen.The priest whispers to me again, Bad women, bad women, occasion of sin, and I don't know what to say to him.

The bad women bring out sandwiches and pour more beer and when we finish eating they put on Frank Sinatra records and ask if any- one would like to dance. No one says yes because you'd never get up and dance with bad women in the presence of a priest, so the women dance with each other and laugh as if they all had little secrets. Tim Boyle drinks whiskey and falls asleep in a corner till Frieda wakes him and tells him take us back to the ship.When we're leaving Frieda leans toward me as if she might kiss my cheek but the priest says good night in a very sharp way and no one shakes hands. As we walk down the

361 street to the river we hear the women laughing, tinkling and bright in the night air.

We climb the ladder and Tim calls to us from his little boat, Mind yourselves going up that ladder. Oh, boys, oh, boys, wasn't that a grand night? Good night, boys, and good night, Father.

We watch his little boat till it disappears into the dark of the Pough- keepsie riverbank.The priest says good night and goes below and the First Officer follows him.

I stand on the deck with the Wireless Officer looking at the lights of America twinkling. He says, My God, that was a lovely night, Frank. Isn't this a great country altogether?

XIX 'Tis.